United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They report that last Saturday, between three and four P.M. they saw two three-deckers and three seventy-fours arrive at Cadiz from Ferrol; that the Santissima Trinidad, another Spanish three-decker, is completed and ready in that harbour; and that they are fitting out five other line-of-battle ships at Cadiz, which have their lower-masts in; that, in order to man the said ships, they are detaining all the crews of the French privateers; that those eleven ships are to be commanded by French officers; and they say the five ships in the Caraccas will soon be ready, that they observed a number of seamen rigging them.
When morning dawned, and the light came struggling feebly through the thick pall of murky, storm-torn vapour that overspread the sky, it became apparent that the skipper's surmise as to the character of the fleet had been correct: the Dolphin being in the midst of some two hundred and fifty sail of vessels of different rigs, from the stately ship to the saucy schooner, in charge of two seventy-fours, a fifty-gun ship, a frigate, and four eighteen-gun-brigs.
On receipt of the news a squadron was sent out of 3 seventy-fours, 2 forty-fours, 3 38-gun frigates, and several sloops of war and brigs, which, on their arrival, were joined by 4 of the East India Company's armed steamers, and to meet them on their arrival about 4000 troops were despatched from India.
Our fleet had scarcely half the ships and guns. We had two ships of one hundred guns, three of ninety-eight, one of ninety, eight seventy-fours, and a sixty-four. There was, however, no comparison between the men. Our own were for the most part tried and trained sailors, while a considerable proportion of the Spaniards were almost raw levies.
Finding himself foiled in this, Blackwood then made a direct request for the command of one of the two vacant seventy-fours. This would give him a chance to share in the fight, which in a frigate he probably would not have, but it would also displace the first lieutenant of the ship from the position to which he had succeeded temporarily.
The French fleet had three seventy-fours, seven sixty-fours, and two fifty-gun ships, one of which was the lately captured English "Hannibal." To these Sir Edward Hughes opposed two seventy-fours, one seventy, one sixty-eight, four sixty-fours, and one fifty-gun ship.
The other ships were the Triumph, Sir Erasmus Gower, the Brunswick, and Bellerophon, seventy-fours, the Phaeton and Pallas frigates, and the Kingfisher, an eighteen gun brig. We sailed at the end of May from Spithead, for a cruise off Ushant. On the 8th of June we made the land about the Penmarcks on the French coast, and soon after the Triumph threw out the signal of six sail east by north.
The smaller the vessel the thinner is her planking, and the more liable are her crew and structure to suffer from the shot of the enemy. Other nations realised this long before we did, especially the Americans, who built forty-four gun frigates almost as large as our "seventy-fours," while their planking was even thicker.
In further consequence, the line-of-battle ships became separated by stretching too far apart in their anxious care to find Troubridge, and when he joined the "Vanguard," on the 7th, the "Orion" and "Alexander" were not in sight. The French having so long a start, and there being now with him eleven seventy-fours, Nelson with characteristic promptness would not delay an instant.
Nelson sailed from Gibraltar on the 9th of May, with the VANGUARD, ORION, and ALEXANDER, seventy-fours; the CAROLINE, FLORA, EMERALD, and TERPSICHORE, frigates; and the BONNE CITOYENNE, sloop of war, to watch this formidable armament.
Word Of The Day